


Erosion

by transmutes (orphan_account)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Avatar State, Avatar the Last Airbender, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:04:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/transmutes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako has wondered what the Avatar State would look like, but he never imagined it would be like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erosion

The way Korra seems to feel everything so intensely, amplified at a level and fervor beyond what seems normal is jarring to Mako at first. After their first full-blown shouting match practicing in the pro-bending arena, he wonders how she doesn’t collapse under the ferocity of it all. In the months he’s known her, he’s observed it time and time again: when she lashes out, her eyes aflame as her breath comes out in hot, angry puffs in a way that’s so histrionic it’s almost comical, he can’t really see her, at least not for what she’s supposed to be. He tries to twist her to fit the schema he had previously crafted of the Avatar, all serenity and wisdom and authority, but it never truly clicks so he forgets it and leaves it at that. 

It isn’t until their lives are in danger, really in danger, that Mako finally sees it and is scared. The Equalists are weaving and dodging lithely through the air, polished skill starkly contrasting his own brasher style of fighting. In what seems like an instant, Bolin’s unconscious and bleeding on the cold pavement and Mako’s hesitating because oh god his brother is hurt. It’s when an Equalist strikes Mako and his right arm snaps, the bone poking clean through the skin on his forearm, that Korra loses it completely. Mako’s biting back screams and trying to clear the bright bubbles of pain obscuring his vision, but when he glimpses at how quickly she flits from a hot-headed, seventeen-year-old to something resembling of a wrathful god, everything seems to stop. He can see it now, even through his own pain and anger, and the sheer force of it steals what’s left of the air in his lungs.  
The Avatar State, he’s heard it called, is frankly horrific.Her eyes are transmuted into a bright blue glowing, a hue similar and yet so, so different from her regular glittering cyan. Pure, tangible power seems to encircle her and it’s turning his stomach, because it’s not right, it’s so much different from how Mako thought it would be. Her face is inhuman and she’s not Korra anymore; this is a completely different kind of anger than he’s ever seen anyone display. This is anger that completely transcends hatred and wrath, something that’s white-hot and foreign and merciless. This Korra-but-not-Korra flashes through emotions quickly as she wields the elements with more strength he thought possible: the rage and destruction of fire, the tenacity and unyieldingness of earth, the quick, suffocating jabbing of air, and the overwhelming malleability of water. All those elements are swirling around her and it has to be too much. Mako thinks it’s like staring into the sun; shouldn’t his corneas have burned away by now? He is powerless to do anything so he shuts his eyes, grits his teeth and wonders how long it will take before she’s eroded away completely.


End file.
